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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27617537">by seagirls wreathed in seaweed red and brown</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/auxanges/pseuds/auxanges'>auxanges</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Homestuck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Implied/Referenced Mind Control</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 03:22:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,625</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27617537</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/auxanges/pseuds/auxanges</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>You loose a breath. It does not fog, but you feel the satisfying little crush of endorphins only voyages like this can give you.  It’s one of many ways you have amassed to feel alive over the sweeps. You collect them like the silver pieces in your hold.<br/>No troll on this ugly rock does life quite like you.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Orphaner Dualscar/Spinneret Mindfang</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>by seagirls wreathed in seaweed red and brown</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this was actually my mindfang assignment for the ancestral zine that released a century ago so im posting it here now. dualfang still, and this is true, good</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The best thing the world ever did for you was not give you fins. It’s not that you don’t appreciate the frivolous — indeed, what kind of pirate would you be if you didn’t, even just a little bit? — but to have it handed to you the minute you hatch takes away from the satisfaction of it all. Victories are sugar-sweet when you pluck them from the grips of your betters. It clears your mind so you can sift through the minds of others; drugs and dead things are for highbloods and storm chasers.</p><p>Your name is Spinneret Mindfang, and as far as an increasing number are concerned, you’re a storm worth chasing.</p>
<hr/><p>Your Gamblignants control a swath of southern ocean that slowly curls upwards, until the waves are choppy enough to snap at your crew’s heels. From there, the Empire takes over: Dualscar doesn’t bother with more than one sentry, because he’s not completely stupid with resources. He has this funny insistence on earning you. On days it doesn’t trigger your gag reflex, it pleases you greatly.</p><p>There’s going to be a meeting soon. Your itinerary is full of <em>soons </em>and <em>laters</em> and <em>blink of an eyes.</em> No timepiece resides in your quarters, because the worship of time is for those with blood measured in hourglasses. You have seen your end in loose, backlit fragments: everything from here to there is an approximation.</p><p>You aweigh anchor from your desk chair, propping your boots on the wood while you lift your deckhand’s arms to reel in the chain. Seldom few among your crew avoid your hooks, but it’s not like they ever protest, not truly. Little fish, bigger pond.</p><p>Letting your good eye close (and the other one make a game effort), you loose a breath. It does not fog, but you feel the satisfying little crush of endorphins only voyages like this can give you.  It’s one of many ways you have amassed to feel alive over the sweeps. You collect them like the silver pieces in your hold.</p><p>No troll on this ugly rock does life quite like you.</p>
<hr/><p>So. Here is how you almost die.</p><p>You throw caution to the wind and let it catch in the sails of the frigate you’re cutting your teeth on. You chart courses your shipmates shudder at, protesting with their eyes when you lock their jaws.</p><p>We have things to do, you say. Great things!</p><p>It’s not a lie or anything. It’s just lacking in certain specifics, for the time being.</p><p>Eventually, the resistance you feel at the base of your horns subsides; the sea rolls more violently underfoot. It’s raining—not really out of the ordinary on your current corner of the map,  with ugly greenish clouds folding back on themselves. You should really keep a log of weather, you think. You should also keep a log of all these great things that are absolutely, definitely going to happen, but you’re only one captain with two hands and three dozen susceptible pans to rifle through.</p><p>The poncey shit loves to complicate things, which is not a department you need help in. (Never mind that inclement temperatures are not <em>technically</em> anyone’s fault, but it’s nice to have a choice scapebleatbeast to fall upon your sword.) You batten down when the first rogue wave roars into view, your chair screaming in protest before pitching sideways entirely.</p><p>Stomping above deck, each wet <em>thwack</em> louder than the last, you resort to your outside voice.</p><p>“I apologize!” you call to your crew. Your shoutbox is a little hoarse, which adds excellent effect when your crewmen aren’t busy bending to your whim. “I hadn’t realized my impaired vision was contagious! Or has anyone here actually managed to notice that the ocean wants to eat us alive?”</p><p>Many, many sets of oculars blink at you.</p><p>“I am not your goddamn lusus,” you continue, running your hands through your soaked hair until your thumbs rest on your temples. The trolls closest to you sway in place, unrelated to the tempest. “I shouldn’t have to hold your fucking hands until you <strong>remember your posts!</strong>”</p><p>Everyone’s feet move with newfound purpose, hands passing over one another to lash down everything loose. You have three-eights of a second of smugness before the next ten-foot whitecap smacks you over the railing.</p>
<hr/><p>Back when you were young and stupid, you believed the shit Dualscar fed you about sacrificing to the deep gods for fair winds. Then, when you got a little less young and a little less stupid (depending on the day, of course), you realized that was crap. Winds, like life, are never fair, and like to try ripping you new and exciting holes.</p><p>You tumble through the blackness of the sea. There is nothing warm here: few things in your course are ever warm, not your kismesis and not your flush dalliances, not the waters you chart and not the rye you choke down and not the metal fused to your shoulder. But as you try to right yourself, the only thing you can think of is heat—that kinetic mess of reds, yellows, colours that flood your dreams and a little too many of your hunches for comfort.</p><p>Like you said, not exactly fair. But it does remind you that you know your end.</p><p>You kick once, twice, and then the deep gods feel bad for you and boost you towards the surface. You toss a mental line back towards the first soul you can feel—no catch—you cast again, wider, and grit your fangs as you search for handholds in your recently acquired hull.</p><p>Your prosthetic is heavy, and your head, to your growing embarrassment, is rapidly joining the club. If you weren’t on something sort of resembling a schedule, you would throttle the closest crewman the minute your boots hit solid ground again. Or maybe just the one who finally extends a hand to haul you the rest of your way up.</p><p>“Spin. You’re early.”</p><p>Scratch that. You’re more than happy to throttle this one.</p>
<hr/><p>Dualscar picks up where you left off, securing your less useful trolls to the masts and railings before dragging you by the soggy coattails back to your quarters.</p><p>“Quit it,” you grouse, brushing off the seadweller stink. “You’ll stretch the fabric.”</p><p>“You’re lucky your pan’s thicker than pack ice,” he replies, rooting around in your cupboards for drink. You only keep it around because you know he’ll look for it, just like he knows you’ll only give him the worst alcohol for leagues around. Your arrangements are a pleasant certainty in your mess of non-specifics. “Any skull more fragile would’ve cracked the second it hit the waves.”</p><p>“I don’t believe that for a second, considering your delicate disposition is still comparatively intact.”</p><p>“Har har.” Dualscar takes a swig straight from the bottle before handing it over. You rub your sleeve over the lip before following suit. “You missed the sentry.”</p><p>“No, I didn’t.” You gesture in a slow arc with the bottle. “You were gallivanting barely a mile out from us, what, forty feet below?”</p><p>He raises an eyebrow: the track marks over his features twist the expression in a way that suits him. “Whose suspicion did you pluck that from?”</p><p>“I don’t kiss and tell, Ampora.”</p><p>The scowl reappears, and he motions for the bottle. “You’re welcome, and all.”</p><p>“For giving me a boost?” You snort. “I have no plan to perish at sea. I’d rather…well, you know.”</p><p>Dualscar snaps his gills in lieu of a laugh. “No wonder she agrees with you. Not many can convince her to spit ‘em out again.”</p><p>“My dear Orphaner, if there is anything you should know about me by now, it’s that no one is more convincing than me.”</p><p>“Aye.”</p><p>You sit in silence for a while, him draining your last-rate sludge and you checking up on the goings-on above your heads. Observances of note: seven crew members acknowledge the worst of the storm is passing you, one recognizes your course as still determinedly trucking to the rendezvous, two wonder if you and the penultimate are gonna do it (you picked them up recently and decide to forgive them), and three are marvelling at the fact that you’re even alive.</p><p>Doesn’t the world get tired of not throwing you a bone every now and again?</p><p>“Spin.”</p><p>“I’m tired,” you say, because you are, and because as dense as he can play at being, Dualscar can take a hint. Reading minds all hours of the night means you have less time with your own than optimal, and accidental topples overboard tend to jump-start your monologues. “Go show my crew how to actually make themselves useful, will you?”</p><p>He stands and stretches. Both of you are getting old, but when you’re in close company you feel like you just crawled your way free into moonlight. “Look alive, Serket,” he calls over his shoulder in the doorway of your quarters. “It suits you better.”</p><p>You flip him off with both hands.</p><p>Once he’s gone, you toss the empty bottle to some forgotten corner and bring a lantern close. The wick catches almost instantly, and you watch the colours intermix, fighting for the top of the glass. You let out another breath; this one does mist.</p><p>There’s paper in your desk drawer, somehow the only remaining dry thing aboard your ship. You root around for ink, pricking your finger on the pen’s tip to dilute it to your swatch. Pirate you may play at, but social convention still exists out here.</p><p>Blood, you decide, is up there with wind and life.</p><p>You suck on your finger, switching hands for your implement, and begin to write.</p><p>
  <em>Second apogee of the bright season. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>It’s raining. </em>
</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>all my titles have to be ts eliot quotes and hozier lyrics or my edgy lesbian card gets revoked</p></blockquote></div></div>
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